


The School of Negation

by tanaleth



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Circle of Magi, F/M, Ghost Stories, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 16:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21256289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanaleth/pseuds/tanaleth
Summary: Alistair asks for a story.(Halloween present for @allisondraste. I hope it does your girl justice!)





	The School of Negation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allisondraste](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allisondraste/gifts).

The first of the two Schools of Matter, Entropy is the opposing force of Creation; for this reason it is often called the School of Negation. Nothing lives without death. Time inevitably brings an end to all things in the material world, and yet in this ending is the seed of a beginning.

_\--From The Four Schools: A Treatise by First Enchanter Josephus_

* * *

"Do you believe in ghosts?" asked Alistair one night as he and Lucia sat before the campfire.

Sten was standing watch at the neck of the ravine, out of sight. The others had retired to their bedrolls—or in Morrigan's case, her own remote tent as usual. He could see her figure silhouetted darkly before the flickering of her campfire, though from this distance he couldn't quite tell whether she was facing away from the rest of them or towards them. Either way, she was probably glaring at something.

"Ghosts?" Lucia turned to give Alistair a perplexed look. "You mean spirits?"

"No, proper ghosts! Spooky stories!" He nudged her with his shoulder, faintly surprised at how natural the gesture felt and even more surprised that she didn't pull away, only shot him a sidelong flash of blue eyes along with the tiniest curve of her lip. "You're from a Circle—didn't all the little apprentices try to scare one another with tales of the haunted alcove on the fourth floor—"

"There was hardly any need for that. With true demons to worry about, we didn't need to invent fanciful tales. "

"Well, that's no fun. I'll tell you one if you—"

"I’ll tell you a story, though," she said, interrupting him. "A true story."

"You will? That's, uh… that's great," he added, a little taken aback. He hadn't really thought she'd play along.

Lucia stretched her legs out beneath her. It had been a long day of trekking on foot. "A story my tutor told me of his own youth, long before I came to the Circle myself. At that time, there were two apprentices who stood apart from the rest. Young women, both powerful and ambitious mages and both apprenticed to the First Enchanter.”

"Not your Irving, I hope.”

Lucia only lifted a brow. A log shifted in the fire before them, scattering sparks into the cool night air. Alistair fell silent and let her go on.

"Now, there's plenty of room in the Circle for scholars. And for years these two coexisted fairly peacefully, as these things go. They competed for prestige and acclaim but their strengths lay in different schools. The first girl focused on the Primal school—storm and fire magic and the elements—and the second in the school of Entropy.”

“Right,” said Alistair, stifling a yawn.

“Now, the first girl was powerful but reckless. She took risks in her studies and set fire to the library more than once.”

Alistair gasped theatrically. "Not the _books!"_

"Fire is fairly common in the library," said Lucia with a thoughtful tilt to her head. "There are protective measures to ensure the danger is contained. Still, it_ was_ a danger, and if she took such risks... well, my tutor told me that more than one Senior Enchanter whispered concerns that her Harrowing might be more of a challenge than anyone expected."

"What about the other apprentice?" asked Alistair. He was enjoying himself mightily. He didn't think Lucia would manage to really scare him—although she had a way of making him nervous with a look—but it was a novelty to hear her… well, _talk_.

"The second apprentice. Now, she was different." Lucia shifted her weight and crossed her legs, leaning away from the fire so that face was wreathed in shadow. "She wasn't showy or brash like the other. She was serious, careful. Meticulous. And all the other apprentices knew there was something else different about her.”

"Fangs? Oh, I hope it was fangs."

"Nothing so obvious. Her specialty didn't help, of course. Entropic magic—using life forces to power spells and hexes—has never been the most popular school. But it wasn't just that. Her tutors thought so highly of her that everyone knew her name, yet you could pass her in the hall without noticing there was anyone else beside you. Until she spoke. She had a strange voice, my tutor told me, harsh and dry as brittle leaves."

“That all sounds perfectly lfine and normal. No cause for concern at all.”

“Hush. I’m setting the mood. So, the time finally came for them both to be Harrowed. All the other apprentices took bets on who would be called first.”

“Aaaand?”

"Well, that's just it." Lucia leaned forward, fidgeting with the gloves of her Grey Warden armor, and gazed at the flames as if she could unlock their secrets with a look. "One morning, the second girl—the apprentice of the Entropy school—didn't show up for breakfast. By dinnertime, there was still no sign of her. Rumors flew and the templars gave one another knowing looks. She'd failed her Harrowing, no doubt."

"Oh, no."

"It gets worse. You see, the other apprentices looked around, and… it turned out she'd never been called for her Harrowing at all. They were looking around her bunk—checking for any of her possessions—and when they pulled back the coverlet, they saw…"

"What did they see?" asked Alistair, aghast in spite of himself. Harrowings were dreadful things. He counted himself lucky to have escaped a future in some Circle somewhere, and began to regret his thoughtlessness in asking Lucia to relive any of these horrors.

"Well, as I said, accidents are common. Perhaps this apprentice had been working on a spell for protection against fire damage, since the bedcovers hadn't even been singed." Lucia sighed. "But all that was left of the girl was a pile of ash and charred bones."

"Maker's breath!"

"It was a terrible tragedy, but of course nothing was ever said about it. The templars collected her remains, the Tranquil cleared her bunk, and the next week there was a new young apprentice sleeping there as if nothing had ever happened."

Alistair frowned.

"Now, the first girl was very quiet while all this was discovered. It seemed as if she hadn't heard the talk. There were whispers that she might have been involved with the other girl's death, but… she was focused on her studies with all the diligence she'd ever shown. When the time for her Harrowing came, it passed without event. She moved upstairs and that was that.

"But every now and again someone would see a shape in the fireplace, or in the shadows from a flickering torch. It would always disappear before they could take a closer look. Even a few templars were seen to look askance at the fireplace, now and then.

"Everyone but the very newest apprentices knows it's wiser not to speak of seeing mysterious figures in the Circle. But it happened, again and again, and hardly a year passed without whispers of a dead apprentice's spirit haunting the tower. Pride, people said, had no doubt been her downfall."

Alistair blinked. "Pride? So did the first girl have something do with it or not?"

"It seemed not. She became a successful scholar and took on students of her own. She never took students of the Entropy School, but that's only to be expected. However." Lucia leaned back, her expression grave. "When the time came for her elevation to Senior Enchanter, she was nowhere to be found."

"Vanished again. The templars must have been happy. Did they look under the covers?"

"They did. They looked everywhere, but it wasn't until they checked the apprentice quarters that they found her. Dead—not just dead. Desiccated. It was as if she'd had her life force drained…"

"...by an entropy mage?" Alistair waggled his brows at Lucia.

"Just as if by an entropy mage."

"You're having me on."

Lucia studied him gravely. "If you say so. There are so many things we still don’t understand about magic... but who knows? Maybe my tutor was mistaken. Anyhow, I’m going to turn in. Good night, Alistair."

"Good night, Luce."

Alistair chuckled to himself as she rose to her feet, still enjoying the warmth of the fire pit. The camp was quiet without so much as a snore from Oghren’s bedroll. But as he gazed into the flames, he thought he saw…

He scooted back, away from the fire.

Just in case.


End file.
